three; where nobody can hear "the noise hurts like nothing ever has, but the silence hurts even more."
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Remus sighed as he looked in the mirror. His skin was unnaturally pale and his eyes looked dull. Straight after the feast he had gone up to his dorm and went to sleep, but it did no good in helping to erase the exhaustion written in his features. The full moon was coming up, which meant that Remus would be looking sickly for a little while longer.
He straightened his robes and ran a hand through his hair as he grabbed his bag. He took the stairs at a sluggish speed, almost tripping at the bottom. He kept walking, and didn't stop when he saw someone look up at him in his peripheral vision. Said person caught up to him outside of the portrait.
"Morning." He turned to find Hope walking next to him, matching his pace. She didn't bother adding a 'good' in her greeting - it was anything but.
"Morning," he replied at the same volume she had spoken. Their voices didn't even echo, as most sounds did in the corridors of Hogwarts. They walked to the Great Hall without saying another word, just listening to the sound of their feet striking the stone stairs as they continued down and down.
"Did James and Sirius settle their dispute?" Hope questioned as they sat next to each other at the table. They were up earlier than most students, and the hall had only a few people scattered here and there, which just encouraged their quiet words.
Remus thought back to the previous night, how two of his closest friends had gotten into such a big fight over something so stupid as whether Lily Evans would ever say yes to James. It wasn't hard to guess who was on which side of the argument.
"Probably not, but they're joking and laughing again, so that's good," he explained.
"What was it this time?" She sighed, moving the food on her plate around with her fork.
"Something stupid, not really worth talking about," he answered, doing the same thing with his own food, as he was scared if he ate anything, he'd only end up coughing it all up.
"Isn't it always?" Hope ran a hand through her hair and placed her fork on the table. She fiddled with her hands, but didn't reach to pick up the fork again. Her food stayed untouched.
It worried him, to say the least. Remus was one of her closest friends, and he knew for a fact that she was always the hungriest in the mornings as opposed to any other time of day. She used to be able to ramble on and on about the brilliance of breakfast foods and how she could eat them for every meal. Now, the waffles and bacon on her plate sat without a single bite taken out of them - completely disregarded. And she hadn't even reached for the eggs and toast the way she always did.
He seemed to be noticing lots of little things about her lately that were making him feel as though something was off. She just seemed so out of it, but he hadn't the faintest idea what could be wrong. She never let on if there were troubles at home, in fact she used to gush about her little brother for hours straight. She was the typical overprotective older sister, and Remus had never seen a bond between siblings as strong as it was between Hope and Danny. And he hadn't even met Danny.
It was the way she talked about him. Lily never spoke of Petunia like that, nor did Sirius of Regulus. He couldn't think of one other person out of everyone he'd ever met who loved their sibling the way she did. They were close, and she was so often writing letters to him everywhere at anytime of day.
He knew he was being silly, of course there wasn't anything wrong. What on earth could be wrong? She was smiling, wasn't she? And she still got up early in the morning to walk to breakfast with him. Everything he saw her do was normal. But he couldn't help but wonder about what he didn't see, because he hadn't seen her write a single letter ever since she came back to Hogwarts.
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The more she thought about it the more she wished she hadn't. She was caught between too many versions of herself, all screaming something different at her. She wanted to scream, too, just to shut them all up. She went through the day while barely saying a word, besides the occasional exchange with Remus or Alice, holding it all in.
By the time the day was over she felt as if she was going to explode. But she still couldn't scream, there were people around at all times and never would she be in a place where she could simply screech until her lungs gave out.
By the time the moon had risen and the sun had made its usual decent behind the horizon, she was positive she would burst. When it was dark and everyone's breathing had evened out, she ran. She took off down the stairs and through the corridors. She made her way for the door, somehow managing to avoid any other people. She flung herself outside, falling to her knees. She quickly got up and kept running, occasionally tripping over her too-long pajama pants.
Her bare feet hit hard against the ground as she headed for the forest. She went in as far as she could before her legs just stopped and she collapsed. She cried into the ground, her tears flowing freely now that she was protected by the solitude of the night.
Then, she screamed.
She screamed and she cried, pounding her fists on the forest floor. She yelled at the moon as if it was the source of all her troubles, she glared at the stars she had once so fiercely loved, and she swore at them. She whispered her hatred for the night, the time when she felt everything so much more than she had when the sun was shining over the fields. She shouted until her voice was gone and she cried until she couldn't breathe.
She stayed crumpled on the ground until the sun slowly revealed itself to her, reminding her how pitiful she had been when its companion had been in its place. She made no move to go back to the castle, just stayed in the safety of the trees where no one could see her.
She didn't want to go back. She didn't ever want to go back.
___________ a/n "amber please stop torturing all your characters" lol no
